Rights Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License Thinking Styles and Cognitive Development

ABSTRACT. Using R. J. Sternberg’s (1988, 1997) theory of thinking styles and W. G. Perry’s (1970) theory of cognitive development, the author investigated the nature of think-ing styles as they relate to cognitive development. Eighty-two Hong Kong university stu-dents (44 male, 38 female) responded to the Thinking Styles Inventory (R. J. Sternberg & R. K. Wagner, 1992) and the Zhang Cognitive Development Inventory (L. F. Zhang, 1997). Statistical analyses provided varying degrees of support for the prediction of an overlap between the thinking style and cognitive development constructs. In general, students who reasoned at a higher cognitive developmental level tended to use a wider range of think-ing styles than students who reasoned at a lower cognitive developmental level. Implica-tions of results are discussed in relation to education and research. Key words: cognitive development, thinking styles STYLES, AS AN INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCE VARIABLE in human perfor-mance, have attracted the attention of many scholars and educational psychologists. In the study of styles, many different labels with the root word style have been cre-ated. The three most frequently used terms are cognitive styles, learning styles, and thinking styles. Although the three types of styles are conceptually different (see Sternberg & Zhang, 2001b), they are similar in one important way. That is, they are all different from abilities. An ability refers to what one can do, whereas a style refers to how one prefers to use one’s abilities. Major research on and theorization of styles have been summarized in a few recent works (e.g., Jonassen & Grabowski, 1993